Sunday, settling down

Original date of post: January 11, 2009

Could it really be that it's been literally 4 days since I've been gone from home? Surprisingly, despite the extraordinarily cold and mostly gloomy weather, the case of the starving college student (as one of my roomies put it), the 45+ minute walk to civilization... (actually probably closer to 30 minutes), the lack of internet and high prices of phone calls at my place, time has passed extremely quickly. Sure, it could just be the optimism speaking (or this Bendadryl that I took to help me fall asleep despite jet-lag), but I feel more settled here than before. My scholarship money has finally been deposited so I won't have to live on 60 pounds for two weeks (near impossible, if you ask me) and I've gotten really close to my roommates within this short amount of time, especially Joelle. I've gotten to know the guys, Josh and Ben, as well, but somehow I just got along really well with Joelle and we've been spending quite a lot of time together talking, laughing, watching movies and cooking like today.

The second day actually being at Oxford was interesting enough. I started it by attempting to ride the bus system towards my destination of St. Hugh's College, for my academic advisor meeting. Not only did I go into two separate stores to ask what bus I should take, but I first asked the bus driver if it was the right bus on the wrong side of the road, then I got on the bus and missed my stop. I literally rode the bus all the way to the last stop, waited as the driver rested on her break, and rode back, this time finally finding Canterbury Road. I got off and surprisingly, when I asked the girl also from OPUS who was just leaving her meeting what time it was, it was five minutes to 12, which was when my meeting was. Ecstatic, I jumped in joy. Once again, this is God at work because I didn't have ANY way to tell time on me at all and for me to go through that whole experience and STILL make it to my meeting on time was just remarkable to me. My meeting went well, and I found out who my tutors will be. I got my first-choice in everything, i.e. British Modernist Literature and Virginia Woolf (and others, I added the others so I can maybe study both Woolf and Joyce's styles of writing). I left my meeting, this time not taking the bus really... then taking a random one just for the heck of it and finding some cool shops, since I knew I had no time restriction now. I just wandered around Oxford, getting to know the streets better, then going to Hertford for some internet access. Unfortunately my username and password (which I later found I copied wrong) didn't work at the time, but luckily there was another OPUS student there so he let me use his for the time being. Afterwards, I went and got a samosa for lunch (I love samosas!), though I was SO cold after being in a chilly basement and then coming out to colder weather and looked pretty blah at the time. I went to the grocery store and bought an amazing load of stuff, then took the bus home (which was amazing compared to the usual walk).

Third day was mostly about getting lost in Oxford. Our program director actually advised that we do to get to know the roads better. Needless to say, I know I am lost when I was trying to head south and ended up way north. But I was cold, tired, and hungry, so I decided that was enough of an adventure for me and bought some more groceries, had a misunderstanding at a shoe store (the British term for rent is let, and I didn't know that), then headed home for warmth at last.

Today was my favorite day funny enough, and it was the least adventurous. I went with Joelle to try and find Oxford Community Church in the morning, but we failed to do so and instead walked quite, quite far up a hill that felt like a mountain to me on my little to no sleep since I'm still very jet-lagged and hadn't slept until 5 a.m. British time and had to get up at 9:50ish a.m. I came back home, and not surprisingly, went straight back to sleep and slept until 3 hours later, then had a nice, small lunch and later made a trip to a Chinese supermarket (that was a surprising discovery from yesterday) where I bought a lot of cheap groceries that will last us a while. I made tofu with soy sauce and Joelle helped make rice. We had a meal! The whole time we could not stop laughing at just how hungry we'd been until this point and how good it felt to actually have enough food. It sounds pathetic in some ways, but come to Europe from the US and you will understand: food is not served in large servings, it is given in small, small portions and we, as college students walking MILES per day, are quite deprived of our nutrition by the small servings we'd been having prior to this meal.

Afterward, we sat on our comfy living room (or multipurpose room as she calls it since we lack a dining room), and watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (thanks to Jia). I actually really enjoyed the film. Then Ben came home and we talked a bit, but Joelle and I were discussing chick flicks so it was pretty funny when Ben, in a girlish voice, sarcastically complimented our choice of films. Joelle was pretty tired so she fell asleep on the couch and I went to clean up the kitchen because I figured I ought to. I guess sometimes we all just need a break, and though I didn't get to go to church today (we tried to go to the evening service at Christ Church College later on as well but missed it), I got to enjoy the company of my roommates by actually being home today as opposed to being outside, shopping all the time for necessities. Tomorrow is a big day with lots and lots to do. Stay tuned, there is surely more to come ;) Glory to His Highest!